


vienna

by thecluelessphilosopher



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bookshops but its not a bookshop au, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Slam poet AU, The White Chapel, University AU, and i stan very much, basically an ode to the spoken word poems i watch at four am, coffee shop AU, copious references to a picture of dorian gray, fiona pitch is a lesbin, he owns a bookstore, im sorry about the americanisms, nico is not a vampire, penelope is pre law, she is also joan jett, she is also very cool, vienna by billy joel, watford is a college town
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecluelessphilosopher/pseuds/thecluelessphilosopher
Summary: Simon Snow is in his last year of university with his best friend Penelope Bunce, it's a cathartic experience being in their last year, but Simon catches a glimpse into Penelope's world one night at an open mic night anSimon Snow is in his last year of university with his best friend Penelope Bunce, it's a cathartic experience being in their last year, but Simon catches a glimpse into Penelope's world one night at an open mic night and meets Baz Pitch through his spoken word poetry. He finds that their last year may not be the end, but just the beginning of Simon’s story.
Relationships: Ebeneza "Ebb" Petty/Fiona Pitch, Penelope Bunce & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	vienna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Open mic nights, uni traditions, and youtube stalking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Welcome to the first chapter, I reformatted a bit which is why Chapter One is a bit longer than before. Check out my tumblr [@the-clueless-philosopher](http://the-clueless-philosopher.tumblr.com) for updates and Simon and Baz shit. Or listen along with the [vienna playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ZZ2hv2TPAZYxUwLoyi8pa?si=ieLyDUvOSU-pUSZr5MFZMw)!

The coffee shop that Penny drags me into the Friday before the fall term of our last year at uni starts is undoubtedly the home of  _ her people.  _ We met in Year 7 and are still best friends today so it's jarring to see the world she has away from me. 

The place is dimly lit with a heavy wooden coffee bar in the back and walls lined with bookshelves.

Plush couches and chairs take up a significant amount of space and where there aren’t florally embroidered seats, there are people, making it near impossible to even walk. 

There’s an unmistakable energy in the air tonight. 

The shop is small, and its reputation has obviously outgrown its location though the indie owners seem unlikely to move, from what I’ve heard.

They’d owned this place for upwards of a decade before it became popular for its open-mic nights.

“The open-mic nights are almost insanely  _ open  _ for the rep that this place has,” Penny says, reading my thoughts, 

“It's inclusive of all ages and it doesn’t end until everyone has gone, they’ve never had to throw anyone off the stage, though there have been a few people who have tried to take advantage of the freedom,” 

She rambles on about the history of the coffee shop, I’m sure it's quite interesting if there’s one thing Penny is not - it's dull, but the whole vibe of the shop is honestly a bit overwhelming and I can’t seem to keep track of what she’s saying. 

The crowd is all intellectual types who look like they discuss Oscar Wilde over Earl Grey, which is not really the group I usually go for. Really, the group of people I go for consists only of Penny. And we actually have discussed Oscar Wilde over Earl Grey, it was delightful, albeit unfair, Penny’s way better at that stuff than me. Regardless, I can already tell I don’t really fit in here. 

Penny grabs my hand and leads me to a couple of open seats by the stage, which is tucked into an alcove right next to the bar and is illuminated by a neon sign that reads  _ The Petty’s _ in script reminiscent of a retro diner. 

“I’m gonna go sign up,” she tells me, leaving me to navigate my way through this crowd on my own, if only for a few minutes. 

The clock above the stage reads 8:45 pm, but these things are known to go on well past midnight.

Last month, when Penny came for the open-mic night she didn’t come home until around three, though I credit some of that to her naturally talkative personality, especially around the Oscar Wilde and Earl Grey folk.

I lean against the wall near the two seats (in the front, of course) Penny picked for us and look around, bobbing my head to Panic by The Smiths, which is playing just audibly over the rambunctious crowd. 

You’d think that when you gather a bunch of academics in a room together, the loudest it could get would be a spirited debate but all of the people here act like they're about to watch a Pink Floyd concert. 

I sit down and lean back in my seat, content to just feed off of the, almost buzzing, energy in the room. 

I look up to see Penny talking animatedly with the scariest woman I have ever seen. She’s all leather-clad with platform docs and fire in her eyes.

Penny catches my eye and makes her way back to be with the woman in tow. 

“Simon!” she practically squeals.

“This is Fiona Pitch-Petty, she co-owns the store with her wife, Ebb!” I think this is as close as Penny gets to fangirling. 

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Pitch-Petty, I’m Simon. Simon Snow.” I say politely, if not a little nervously. 

“You too, kid, and its Fiona, little Bunce here talks about you a decent amount. ” I give her a quizzical look. 

“What? She talks about you enough that I know you exist and that you’re important to her, but not so much that it's weird.”

“Right, yeah,” I stammer though I really don’t know what to say in this kind of situation. 

“Hey, Bunce, have you thought about my job offer yet?” Fiona asks, ignoring my awkwardness. 

“What? You didn’t tell me about that, Pen!” 

“Well I thought it would be too much with my course load,” she says, looking shy for the first time all night. 

“We could really use the help with organizing the events, my nephew’s been busy with school and can’t help out as much.”

“Ah, and how is Basilton?” Penny asks with an amused look on her face. 

“Dramatic and sarcastic as ever, Bunce,” suddenly I feel like I’m witnessing a whole world I know nothing about. Obviously, these people mean a lot to Penny, it's nice to know that she has people in her corner besides me. She says people don’t need more than two friends, but after Agatha and my break-up, she may be down to one. 

“And is he going to perform for us?” Pen asks. 

“I think he might, tonight if I can convince him,”

“He better, he’s bloody brilliant,” 

“And he knows it too, hey you performing tonight, Penelope?” Penny nods. 

“Awesome, we have a pretty great line up - hey I’ll catch you guys later, the show’s about to start.”

Fiona marches on stage and says something to the technicians as Penny and I sit down. 

“How do you know these people so well?” I ask. 

“Well I come her every so often to chat with Fiona, she’s a brilliant poet but I think she should write a novel someday,”

“And her nephew, Razzilton, was it?” Penny laughs. 

“Baz, Basilton, is in a fair number of my classes, he’s a Poli Sci major but he’s minoring in English lit or creative writing or something. He also hangs around here to help out Fiona and Ebb quite a bit.”

I make a hum of acknowledgement as Fiona takes the mic and starts up the event. 

“Welcome, everyone, to our first open mic night of the school year,” she says in a way that's somehow both charismatic and welcoming and also cold and aloof. 

“In the past its been our longest of the year because you uni kids are back and just motivated enough to present, we see that change drastically as the year goes on,” the room erupts into chuckles, and I get the feeling it's some kind of inside joke she shares with the rest of  _ The Petty’s  _ open-mic night veterans. 

“Well, the clock’s stroke nine, so let’s get going. Without further adieu, please welcome to the stage, Trixie Taylor, our resident bard!”

Trixie sings a song recounting  _ The Odyssey  _ from Odysseus’s wife’s perspective. The crowd is really into it, and I enjoy it, but Penny rolls her eyes muttering something about chord progression that I can’t make out. 

Penny’s a humanities major, but she fancies herself a musician after her recent success trying out the guitar. Though, truthfully, she’s good at everything she tries. 

The song finishes with a rousing applause, even Penny lets out a holler, and I soon realize that this is an incredibly close-knit and supportive community. 

I feel a little like I’m invading but there seem to be plenty of first-times who are also enamored with the energy of the people here. 

The next few performances are pretty good, not boring at all. Everyone has a very unique style and tone which I appreciate. 

Trixie comes back up again to read a poem with her girlfriend, Keris, about their two different experiences with sexuality which is actually quite moving.

If I thought the crowd was buzzing before, I hadn’t seen anything yet. No one seems upset to be sitting for too long, it’s amazing, a group of maybe ninety people all crowded together in this little coffee shop, changing each other's lives.

At around midnight, I start to get tired, but not the kind of tired where you want to go to bed, the kind with delirious smiles and embarrassing giggles. 

Soon after, Fiona calls Penny to the stage, and I swear people stop breathing. I know Penny’s only performed at one of these before (she didn’t tell me she was going to or I would have been there!) but people obviously remember her. 

Her voice is earnest and captures the audience’s attention almost instantaneously as she recites a poem about her experiences with race. It's fantastic, of course. She gets a standing ovation (is that a thing at an open-mic night?).

The night goes on and I try my best not to fall asleep on Penny’s shoulder. I’m sure she’d be okay with leaving if I wanted to, but there’s something about being in that place in the early hours of the morning that’s so special that I keep my mouth shut. 

I’ve stopped looking at the clock, but sometime later Fiona comes back onstage. 

“And now, last but not least,” she starts tiredly “my nephew, Basilton Pitch”. 

The violinist who had been standing in the background accompanying people with instruments, or playing as people recited their poems steps forward.

He smirks like he knows he’s about to be amazing and takes a deep breath as he starts on. 

And oh.  _ Oh.  _

He’s beautiful. 

His voice is deep but sing-songy, not monotone. He is expressive but not overly so, not like he’s trying to convince us that his words are true, more like he’s so sure that they are true, that he can’t help himself from emoting. 

His voice surrounds me and I’m gone. Everything else melts away and it's just him, talking about his mother. 

It's devastating, the pain on his face that was so guarded not a minute ago, the desperation in his hand movements. 

And the words. No one should be allowed to wield words like that. He created something beautiful with them, but I’m so sure he was the kind of person that could just as easily create a weapon as he could flower. 

His eyes are closed and he looks fucking ethereal, with the neon lights glinting off of his black hair which hangs just below his shoulders. 

He’s enigmatic. 

He slows down the pace of his words, makes them tender instead of desperate, intentional rather than exasperated like he’s nearing the end of his poem.

Then he opens his eyes. 

Stormy grey eyes look up and I can’t breathe. 

He meets my eyes as he says “And then, well, then I burn,” and my heart stops. 

He steps back from the mic and the crowd erupts into raucous applause, rivaling that which Penny got, though some of it might be because he was the last performer of the night. 

I stand up with the rest of the audience and clap until my hands hurt. 

“Si? Simon? Are you okay?” Penny asks. 

I touch my face and realize I had been crying. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply quickly, looking back up at the stage to find a pair of piercing eyes staring back at me. 

Fiona comes to find us after the show and starts up a conversation about the different performances.

I tiredly lean into Penny’s side and think about Basilton, Baz.  _ Of course, that's his name  _ I think to myself as if I have any idea what kind of person he is and thus what kind of name would fit him. 

“What about you, Simon, what’d you think of the performances?” Fiona asks, flashing me a look like she knows my mouth was hanging open as her nephew performed. 

“I-uh, yeah, they were all really great,” I manage to stutter out. I decide to blame my incoherency on sleep deprivation. 

“Well we better get home,” Penelope says, saving me from myself. 

“Yes, you two look like shit,” Penelope rolls her eyes and Fiona wraps her in a hug. 

“It was good to see you, Bunce, think about my offer, yeah?” Penny nods her head and Fiona turns toward me. 

“Nice to meet you, Bunce’s friend,”

“Yeah, uh, you too,” I stutter, holding my hand out for an awkward handshake. She hugs me fiercely instead. 

“Come back, soon, yeah,” she says, and though I know its a nice sentiment, it somehow still sounds like a threat. 

We stumble out of the coffee shop. And once we’re around the corner to our apartment, that's very luckily close to the venue. 

Once in the doorframe, I turn to Penelope. 

“Pen?”

“Yeah?” she asks with a yawn, leaning her forehead against my chest. 

“Yeah, I think I might be a little bit gay.” She stares at me for a second and just nods. 

“We need something to eat, yeah?”

»»———— ————««

“So you’re bisexual?” Penny asks me over biscuits and tea at four am.

“I suppose? I mean I’ve been with women, yeah, so I can’t be completely gay”

“Well just because you’ve been with women doesn’t mean you like them in  _ that  _ way, I mean, like when you were with Agatha did you love her, as more than a friend?”

“I don’t know,” I say warily. 

“Well, it's not something you have to figure out now, you don’t need to put a label on yourself if you're not ready,” she says delicately, standing up to put away her plate. 

“Why now? What made you realize all of a sudden?” she asks, obviously wanting to ask me that question this whole time. 

“Uh I-I guess it was that guy, Baz,” I answer sheepishly “but it's something I’ve actually been thinking about for a while.”

“Baz, huh? He’s pretty fit I guess, and a hell of a writer, gets it from his aunt,”

“Is he…?”

“Gay? Not sure, do you want me to ask Fiona?”

“No, no, no, I’ve never even  _ talked  _ to him, besides, Pen, you’re way too blunt!”

“Am not!”

“No? Remember how you broke up with Micah?”

“Yes, he started to break up with me so I told him he was an ass and broke up with him first,” she says without blinking an eye. 

I make a face at her. 

“I think that’s more to do with my pride than my candor, Si,”

“Candor, Sure, Pen.”

»»———— ————««

The next morning we both wake up at around noon, which is far too early considering we didn’t actually get to bed until five. 

I walk out of my room in a tired daze and hang my legs out the kitchen window breathing in the fresh air. 

Penny joins me a few minutes later, handing me a cup of coffee and sitting next to me. 

“Si, you could fall out of the window,” she says. 

“Penelope, you’re literally sitting next to be.”

“True but I am far less clumsy then you,”

“Fair.”

“So what do you want to do today, Simon?”

I shrug noncommittally. 

“Great, I already decided we’re going to the bookstore.”

I roll my eyes at her as she moves from her spot beside me to take a shower. Hollering “at least put on a shirt, Si!” 

I stay for a few more moments just enjoying the quiet, my head still buzzing from all the excitement last night. It's ungodly hot but I always feel better when the sun’s out so I make my way to my room to get dressed with a smile on my face. 

Penny and I make our way into town hand-in-hand. We live in a small university town so it's pretty easy to get around on foot. 

I love weekends with Pen, especially the ones just before the term starts because we both get busy. 

We make our way down the cobblestone streets chattering idly and laughing wildly until Penelope suddenly stops outside the bookstore with a display that’s been there for as long as we have known of the place’s existence. 

“Simon,” she starts “we’re here,”

“I know, we are Pen,” I sigh.

“Si, we have to do the thing.”

“No, Pen, please don’t make me do the thing.”

“Simon!” she shrieks, nudging me painfully in the side with her strangely pointy elbow. 

I give in, bracing myself for the inevitable. I pull out my phone and queue up  _ Vienna  _ by Billy Joel. In Penny’s eyes, the first time we step into the bookstore every year signifies the beginning of the school year, and thus beginning of the rest of our lives, as Penelope puts it. She says it's an important moment that, in her eyes, must be ceremonious. 

In our second year, we didn’t go into the bookstore until three weeks into the term, but she still insisted that we were starting a tradition. 

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

I push play and the opening piano of the song filters through my phone’s crappy speakers as Penny grabs my hand and stands in the open doorway of  _ Vienna Books.  _

Penny takes a deep breath in and out and closes her eyes. 

“Penny people are staring,” I whisper. 

“Shh, Simon, it's a tradition!”

“I’m hot, Pen!”

“Shhhh.”

I close my eyes and decide to indulge Penny in her eccentrics.

I take a deep breath and wait.

The lyrics start and as Billy Joel wails out “ _ But you know that when the truth is told/That you can get what you want or you get old, _ ” Penny and I take a practiced, synchronized step into the shop and let the AC wash over us. 

“We’re here,” Penny breathes over the song, and she says I’m dramatic.

We stand in the doorway and listen to the rest of the song. We’ve never actually gotten to the end because the owner, Nico, always glares at us until we turn it off but this time he just gives us a soft smile and disappears into the backroom.

We stand until the song is over, a silence that with anyone else would be awkward but with Penny is just nice.

The last note rings out and I pause the next song before it can play as Penny drags me to the ‘Social Justice Corner’, of the store, describing all the books she wants to get and talking about how amazing all the authors are. I just listen to her rant and absorb the familiarity of it all.

We drift around the store for a bit and I consider venturing into the ‘LGBTQ+ Lit’ section but decide against it, it's a little too intimidating at the moment. 

I make my way into the graphic novel section, getting a glimpse at Penny and Nico in a heated discussion about the vowel shift of the 16th century. 

I eventually land on a compilation of  _ Fantastic Four  _ comics from the eighties. Penelope says that I nerd out over comics almost as vehemently as she does over feminism and whatnot. 

We check out separately and leave the bookstore reluctantly, Penny with a stack of various titles, all vastly different crammed into her tote bag.

“Lunch?” she asks, I agree, we didn’t even eat breakfast.

We decide on our favorite noodle place, the same one we’ve gone to the past three years, and bask in the glow of being back at school again. 

A bloke comes toward us to come to take our orders as we sit down, at the same table we always do. He seems new, I’ve never seen him before, and when you live in a town like this you tend to get to know everyone. 

“Hi, folks! I’m Shepard, from Omaha, Nebraska, by the way, and I’ll be taking care of you this afternoon!” He says a little too enthusiastically to have been working here long.

“What can I get started for you two?” he asks. 

Penny and I order and thank him and I notice his gaze linger on Penny as he takes our menus and smile. 

“So, Simon, I know you don’t want to talk about what we’re gonna do after school but have you thought about it at all?” Penny’s known she’s wanted to be a lawyer then an MP for as long as I can remember but I’ve never been quite as sure. 

“Uh, sort of,” I say shyly. 

“I mean there’s tons you can do with a communications major,” she tries. “Marketing, business, journalism.”

“Yeah I guess, I don’t know Pen, the idea of working in an office kind of makes my stomach turn,”

“Hmm, well, remember I can help, or just listen if you ever want to talk about it,”

“Yeah, thanks, what about you? Thought about law school?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a few places in mind,”

“Yeah?”

“You know, Kings, Cambridge, and Oxford, even though they’re long shots, LSE, Edinburgh,” she hesitates “a few places in America,”

“Really? That’s great, Pen!”

“Yeah? You wouldn’t be mad if I moved to America?”

“I mean I’d be disappointed, but if that's what you want...you could even live with Agatha!”

“Yeah...Si-”

“I’m okay, really, we were always better as friends”

“If you’re sure,”

“Trust me, I am” 

Shepard brings out our food and attempts to flirt with Penny, only to be met with cluelessness. Penny’s super insightful, but painfully oblivious at the same time. 

“Penny!” I whisper yell. 

“What, Si?”

“He’s totally flirting with you?”

She rolls her eyes and looks down at her lunch but I can tell she’s smiling.

After lunch, we walk around for a little longer, taking in the town.

We live only a few minutes from school but we spent most of the summer with Penny’s family so it's nice to be back just the two of us. We made a whole trip of it because we visited them for her brother, Premal’s wedding. I even got leave from  _ The White Chapel,  _ where I work part-time. 

“Si, I think I left my jacket at the bookstore, is it okay if we go back?”

“S’alright, it's on the way home anyway,”

We walk towards the store and as we come in front of the windows I spot grey eyes. I yank back Penny’s arm and muffle her scream with my hand. 

“Penny! He’s in there!” I hiss. 

“Who’s... _ oh! _ ”

“We can’t go in there!”

“Why not! I need my jacket, and it’ll be a chance to say hi!”

“I think his aunt is there too!”

“Fiona? Well, now I have to go say hi, Si, besides I think I’m gonna tell her I want the job,”

I give in and go with her, unable to think of a sufficient excuse. 

“Bunce! Snow!” Fiona says as soon as we walk into the shop, looking like she just stepped off of a Joan Jett album cover. 

“Hey, Fi!”

“Fiona, you know Penelope?” Nico asks.

“‘Course! She’s an open mic night legend!”

“You two know each other?” I ask, instantly regretting it as all eyes fall on me. 

“Nico’s Ebbs brother!” Penelope tells me. 

“Simon, this is my nephew, Basilton, you saw him at the open mic night last night.”

“Yeah, you were really great, mate,” I say awkwardly sticking my hand out towards Baz. 

He sneers, and it becomes very obvious that even though he was so vulnerable and open on stage, in real life, he’s guarded, it's jarring because I feel like I’ve known him for a while based on how personal his poem was. 

“Thanks,” he says cooly, stiffly shaking my hand. 

“Alright, Bunce, you thought about my job offer?” Fiona tries again. The two of them start talking, Nico occasionally taking a jab at Fiona and I’m left staring at Baz’s stupidly mesmerizing eyes. 

He gracefully jumps up onto the counter to grab his coffee cup from the shelf behind Nico and takes a sip. 

“So, are you excited for the year to start, Basilton?” Basilton!? It's obvious everyone calls him Baz, I’ve already made an arse of myself. 

“It’s Baz, and yeah, I am, what about you Simon...” I’m so hung up on the way my name sounds in his posh accent that I almost miss that he was asking for my last name.

“Uh, Snow. Simon Snow.” I stammer. 

“What about you, Snow?”

“Yeah, it's good to be back,” I wince at how awkward I sound.

“Well, we better get going,” I hear Penny start “I have a phone call with my parents this evening,”

“Well, I’m glad we ran into you, Bunce, see you Monday!”

“Yup!” I stammer out a quick bye and awkwardly smile at Baz as we exit the shop. 

“Penelope that was a disaster!” I moan. “Why was it so awkward?”

“I don’t know, Si, but I forgot my jacket again.”

Penny goes back in and comes back after an ominous amount of time. 

“Hey, Si, I got you a present!”

Penny hands me a copy of  _ The Picture of Dorian Gray.  _

»»———— ————««

“Tea and scones at  _ The Chapel _ ?” Penelope asks, even though we’re both already walking in that direction, forgetting any previous plans to go home. 

“Of course!” I reply as we walk down the street. Watford has no dearth of coffee shops and cafés but  _ The White Chapel  _ is one we frequent just because of how ridiculous it is.

Each table is themed for a different classic book, the owner, Ms. Possibleff, a former professor at the university named it  _ The White Chapel  _ because she calls it an ‘edifice in honor of the great names of literature’.

It's Penny’s favorite place in Watford besides  _ Vienna Books.  _

This excursion has only recently become part of our beginning of the year traditions. We discovered it by accident in the middle of our second year when we were looking for apartments.

We had been living in the dorms for a year and a half but after, as we’ve dubbed it, ‘the laundry room incident’, Penelope decided it was time we get our own place and pretend we’re adults. 

Penelope’s perfectly competent, and brilliant, on her own but when we’re together we never seem to get wherever we need to go.

This phenomenon served us well throughout high school as the incipient for numerous discoveries of interesting spots, and it didn’t stop in university. 

_ The White Chapel  _ shares our same address, just on the opposite side of town. 

Penelope says it's a perfect ‘serendipitous find’, the name we have given to the locations we’ve come across by accident. 

When we stumbled upon it the first time, Miss Possiblef offered me a job, that was the only way I was ever able to afford my own place with Penny. I had some money saved up from odd jobs from before University when I lived with my foster father but without the free housing that came with my scholarship, money would have been pretty tight without Miss Possiblef helping me out. 

We make our way into the store and take our usual seat at the  _ ‘Harry Potter _ ’ table (another serendipitous find, all the other tables were full the first time we came in so it became a tradition). The table is draped with a ‘Gryffindor Quidditch’ table cloth and a snitch sugar pot as well as other odd, themed embellishments. My favorite parts, however, are the ‘Fuck JK Rowling’ teacups that are used exclusively for this table. 

Last year, the cafe got sued for defamation, but with the help of the university, and this very much movie-esc effort of the town, we won. 

Penelope gets up to get our orders and I pull out my phone. 

It's around five pm when she gets back to our table with two teas (one for me, one for her) and two sour cherry scones (both for me).

We drink our tea in companionable silence, both of our mental/social batteries considerably drained. 

Our friendship works well in that sense, we love each other fiercely, but we don’t get hung up when one of us needs some space. 

By this time, Penny knows that I don’t always have the words to articulate what I need to say, so she’s learned to read my emotions well, and she knows when I’ve run out of words, she doesn’t push. 

I know that Penny’s an introvert, and she needs time to herself so I don’t get offended when she needs to retreat into her bedroom for a bit. 

We’ve been friends since we were eleven, almost half my life, our friendship is easy, I don’t need to pretend to be energetic when I’m not, neither does she. 

We read our books from  _ Vienna  _ and sip our tea, in a tableau that I’m sure I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Penelope and I and this town have been everything for so long, it seems weird that this is our last year in this routine. After school Penny will go to law school and take over the world, maybe I’ll be there with her but it won’t be the same. 

A lot of things have come and gone in my life, I’ve lost a lot but me and Penny and silence filled with unconditional love, is forever. 

We take our time making our way home, wandering through the cobblestone-clad town, just trying to savor our last first weekend before school.

We walk towards our apartment, swaying and swerving down the street with no real balance as Penelope leans into my side and rests her head on the space below my shoulder as we walk home.

I’m content in a way that can only be achieved with the understanding that I’m also a little sad. 

Penny says nostalgia is one of the most dangerous human emotions, I think she may be right about that. 

»»———— ————««

**_The Petty’s Online,_ ** _ December 6, 2019: Basilton Pitch reads “An Ode Forest Fires” at Open Mic Night _

**_Button Poetry,_** _July 15, 2020_ ** _:_** Basilton Pitch - “Vampire”

**_speakeasylondon,_ ** _ March 4, 2020:  _ “On Victorian Architecture” by Basilton Pitch ****

I spend the whole night searching up Baz’s name on YouTube. It feels weirdly sneaky and mildly stalker-like since I’ve met him but it's not like I’m doing much sleuthing, there’s enough content without it. He’s done a ton of performances at a bunch of different venues, it looks like. From the comments, he even has a bit of a following. 

“SpokenWordTurd:” one reads, “this man is mesmerizing and also hot as hell, can I buy his book anywhere?” 

I have to agree with the sentiment, when you watch him speak, it's like watching him come undone in the best way possible. He comes alive, it's hypnotic. It's like all I want to do is get a glimpse of his mind. I barely understand half of it but it gives me chills anyway. 

I bury myself under the covers like I’m hiding but in reality, all I want to do is focus on Baz’s words and let everything else fall away. I see so much of who he is, it's like whiplash remembering the man I met at the bookstore, he was so closed off and reserved. The man reading has his heart open for me to see. I can’t help but want to return the favor. 

After exhausting YouTube’s content, I go back to the first video, “An Ode to Forest Fires”, from an open mic night last winter. My eyes widen with his first words, strong, certain, demanding attention. He pulls me into his world for just a bit. 

I feel my gut twist painfully as he stops sounding certain, he gets to the more tender part of the poem, his voice gets soft, vulnerable, almost a whisper. Like he’s telling me a secret. 

He smiles at the end of the poem, takes a bow, and walks off stage. He looks much less smug than he did when I saw him perform. He looks as if he’s almost surprised at himself. I didn’t realize how fast my heart was beating until the video’s ended. 

I sit in bed like a livewire, electrified from Baz’s words.

»»———— ————««

I wake up late to the sound of Penelope’s hype music. It's been the same playlist for as long as we’ve lived together, every first-day-of-school, every test day, before every presentation. It brings a smile to my face. I suppose once we leave university and Penny goes to law school, we might still live together, depending on where she goes, I was planning to move to London and figure out what the ever-loving fuck to do with my life, but we might not. Strangely enough, Penny’s hype music has become almost ritualistic for me. 

I hate waking up late, even if I have nothing to go to in the morning, I feel lazy getting up past eight. Like I’m about to waste the day. I’m different in the morning, everything seems possible when you get up with the sun. 

I stumble out of my room and into the kitchen wearing my grey Watford University sweatpants, where Penelope is making toast and humming along to Beyoncé as she does some (terrible) jerky dance. She’s wearing my University hoodie. I once confronted her about it and she said “Simon, you have too much school pride anyway, you can spare some,” I guess she does it just to spite my poor wardrobe choices.

She turns towards me with a shit-eating grin “someone was up late last night,” she drawls. 

“How could you tell?” 

“Oh please, Simon, you’re not subtle, I could hear Baz’s voice through the walls,” I feel my face heat up almost painfully.

“Oh, yeah, um, sorry,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck, nervous, and not meeting her eyes. 

“It's all right, Simon, I understand, you’re in  _ love, _ ” she twirls around and gracefully deposits our toast from the frying pan onto two plates.

“I am not in lo-”

“Oh how beautiful young love is,” she says dramatically pretending to swoon. I roll my eyes. 

“Don’t you have class or something?” I ask, crossing my arms over my bare chest. 

“Not for another couple of hours, so we have all morning for you to talk about your new  _ crush, _ ” I pout and she hip checks me. She’s significantly shorter than me, though, so she ends up just touching my upper thigh. 

She puts down our plates on the island and pulls out a bar stool as I thank her for the meal. We usually trade off cooking, I’d say I’m a better cook but Penelope makes much less mess so the quality of the experience overall tends to balance out. 

Penny stares at me wide-eyed, leaning forward dramatically on her elbows, waiting for me to enlighten her on my new-found love interest. 

“Spit it out, Pen,”

“Baz is an amazing poet,” she says cheekily. 

“He’s also very hot,” I say, raising my eyebrows at her. 

“He’s pretty fit,” Penelope admits, raising a cup of coffee with a cartoon cat to her lips. 

“So...are you excited for classes to start?” I ask, obviously disinterested. 

“Si, I can always just ask Fiona if he likes men,” she says, exasperated. 

“I’m pretty sure he does going off of some of his poems,” I blush remembering his more...graphic poems. 

She raises her eyebrows and smiles suggestively.

“But the point is moot, Penelope, I’ll probably never see him again, and I just got out of a relationship, and I’m way too busy for one anyway,” I say, a little too fast. She just smirks and opens up a book. 

»»———— ————««

My first class of the term is “Sports Journalism”, Penny suggested that since I fulfilled most of the requirements to graduate, I try to explore my options for after I graduate. I’m a communications major but to be honest I have no idea what I’m gonna do with that degree. I suppose I only declared it because it seemed versatile, I generally enjoy my classes but none of them seem to be the kind of thing I’d want to be doing for the rest of my life. 

The professor is a short woman, about Penny’s height with a certain warmth and casualness about her, she was definitely meant to be a teacher, but she seems like the unconventional kind, the kind to prescribe meaningless exercises designed to make us ‘dig deeper’ I guess they work sometimes. 

She goes over the syllabus and lets out class with five minutes to spare and looks at me curiously as I leave. 

I suppose the idea of being a journalist drew me to it initially, but I’m not sure what I’d write about at all, I’m not sure I’m even any good at writing. I get fine grades but I’ve never been fantastic at anything the way Baz is fantastic with his poetry or the way Penny has a knack for law. 

I guess I’ll figure it out when I get to it, that's the way I make all my decisions. I walk around campus for a bit, watching the University come back to life. There’s nothing like the beginning of the school year, nervous first years looking for a group, melancholic seniors and cynical students in the in-between. 

A group of younger students sit in the sun on a picnic blanket as I circle around the political science building and find a spot under a tree. I set a timer for half an hour before my next class and turn on my music. I sit at ease for a few minutes but my ease is almost never prolonged, as I get the itching feeling that I’ve been sitting for too long. However, instead of getting up from the soft grass, I pull my phone out from my pocket and pull up a YouTube search. 

»»———— ————««

Penelope’s always busy once the term starts, last year she got so invested in her Political Philosophies of Europe class that I ended up having to slip her mail through her door. I also ended up doing all the cooking, which I think is the only thing that ever got her to leave her room besides going to classes. 

I asked her once why she didn't have to work to pay for college, I’m on a scholarship and I still have to work at  _ The White Chapel  _ to pay for rent and living. Her parents aren’t rich but It turns out she actually makes a sizable amount for the poems she’s published in various smaller journals. Thinking about it makes me wonder if Baz has been published. He probably has been, given how many views his videos get. He’s probably the guy that used to win all of the academic awards, and got acknowledged by the headmaster and shit. I say that, because that's who Penny was when we were teenagers. 

I don’t see Penelope very much at all as the term starts because she’s busy working at Ebb’s as well as busy with all of her classes, so I decide to go see her after her shift and take her out for tea. I suppose we could get stuff from  _ The Petty’s  _ but it seems a little boring to eat in the same place you work. 

Though, I suppose we eat at my place of work all the time. 

I make my way into town and towards the cafe as I contemplate this dilemma and muse about whether or not Baz will perform at the next open-mic night. 

I open the glass door and hear the metallic ring of the entrance bell.  _ The Petty’s  _ looks vastly different during the afternoon than it does during their open-mic nights. For one, it’s much less crowded, and there are tables stacked onto the stage where a group of people around our age are sitting. 

Ebb, who I was introduced to briefly at the open-mic, recognizes me immediately and wraps me in a hug. She practically shoves me onto a barstool and has coffee in my hand before I can even greet her. 

“Wotcher, Simon! To what do I owe the pleasure?” She asks with a bright smile. 

“I, um, just thought I’d visit Penny at the end of her shift!” I say, trying to match her enthusiasm. I’ve only known her for a brief time, but she’s so warm and kind, I try to be kind in return. 

“Oh, she’s in the office helping Fi with something, I’ll go see if she’s done yet,” Ebb says, turning away from me

“Oh you don’t have to do that-” I try, but Ebb is already out of earshot. 

I look down at my coffee with an amused smile on my face. When I look up again I see him. 

Baz. Baz Pitch, standing with his back towards me, making coffee. He’s wearing jeans, and damn, he looks really fucking good in jeans. I will my face not to blush but the tips of my ears are burning by the time he turns around and spots me. 

I almost wish he hadn’t turned around as my cheeks start to flush. He’s wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt and a canvas apron that makes him look like a cross between a ridiculously fit lumberjack and a ridiculously fit vampire. Either way, he’s a ridiculously fucking fit.

“Snow,” he says cooly, “can I get you anything?” 

“I-um, no I’m alright,” I respond like a fucking idiot, barely daring to look up from my coffee for feel he’ll see everything on my face. 

“Alright then,” he says, moving away from where I’m sat. 

“Wait!” I all but shriek. 

“Can I get your number?” Baz looks shocked but before he can answer, Penelope comes bounding towards us. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
